Richard M. Perloff is a professor of communications and psychology at Cleveland State University.John C. Jones

CLEVELAND -- He branded himself an urban populist, offering fiery "to the barricades" rhetoric that pitted his unconditional support for the people against the wealthy business elites.

On an October evening nearly 40 years ago, the wide-eyed candidate took his mayoral campaign to the St. Benedict's Catholic Church Hall on Cleveland's East Side, where he fervently campaigned for every vote in the room, even pledging to hire 60 more dogcatchers.

"You want it, you got it," he declared, gesturing dramatically, the nonverbal effect magnified by the fulsome mop of hair sweeping flamboyantly across his forehead.

Until he tussled with the police chief and fired him at a live press conference on the 6 p.m. news on Good Friday. Until he seemed to delight in confrontation with everyone, not least the proud, ambitious City Council president, George Forbes, who towered over the 5'7", 135-pound Kucinich.

And then there was the recall election, financial default -- turbulence that shook City Hall to its political foundations.

This is how many people remember it and how it has been constructed by historians, at least one of whom, Melvin G. Holli, pronounced Kucinich among the worst of the nation's mayors.

But 40 years have passed, and events that once seemed bright and fiery can take on a nuanced hue in the lamplight of reflection.

Kucinich was a populist decades before the term took on a modern urgency, speaking Bernie Sanders-like against corporate collusion and tax abatements. He stood steadfastly for public ownership of utilities in Cleveland, specifically the beleaguered city-owned electric utility firm, Municipal Electric Light or Muny Light (later renamed Cleveland Public Power), cast by Kucinich as the valorous David against the rapacious Goliath, Cleveland Electric Illuminating, now part of FirstEnergy.

Muny was an imperfect David, for it had lost customers, offered mediocre service and had frequent electric outages. As a result, the city was compelled to subsidize Muny, which had accumulated an $18 million debt for electric power it purchased from CEI. CEI wanted the debt paid, but CEI was ravenous and predatory, taking actions -- imperiling Muny's finances, secretly sponsoring a lawsuit, and preventing Muny from buying electric power from other sources -- that "severely crippled Muny," as Todd Swanstrom observed in his authoritative book on Cleveland during the Kucinich years.

CEI's goal was to "snuff out Muny," to turn off Muny's lights, as the talented Plain Dealer reporters of the late '70s, Daniel R. Biddle and David T. Abbott, documented.

Panicked political and business elites demanded that the city sell Muny Light to CEI, replenishing the city's coffers and shoring up Cleveland's deteriorating credit rating. But Kucinich would not budge. Channeling his inner Tom Johnson, the storied early-20th-century Cleveland mayor, Kucinich argued that Muny Light was "the soul of the city" that belonged to the citizens of Cleveland.

The daily tumult at City Hall boiled over, finally coming to a head in December 1978, when Cleveland's major banks refused to roll over or refinance $14 million in short-term loans they had routinely excused in the past, even as the city faced impending default.

In truth, as Fred Branfman pointed out in an article in The Nation during this period, the banks weren't worried in the slightest about repayment; they had plenty of assets to cover the loans. It was all a cruel capitalist game of chicken: The banks were financially and socially in bed with CEI, with extensive social ties and interlocking conflict-of-interest directorates with the Cleveland powerhouse.

Even in the face of last-minute, self-serving compromises thrown up by the banks and City Council, Kucinich stood his ground (picture Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," in a more combative pose). Kucinich refused to sell Muny, and on Dec. 15, 1978 the city ignominiously became the first major American city to default since the Great Depression.

Let's be clear: Kucinich was not innocent. His confrontational rhetoric, unwillingness to find ways to compromise with the banks and disdain of the art of give-and-take contributed substantially to the default.

But Kucinich got the big picture right. Just about every book or article written on the topic pins blame on CEI's predatory greed. What's more, Cleveland Public Power saved Clevelanders tens of millions of dollars over what they would have coughed up to CEI, Slate reported in 2003, based on a Cleveland Magazine article.

Political leaders must be judged by the ideas and innovative frameworks they contribute to the symbolic life of a community, and Kucinich made noteworthy contributions.

Before populism became a catchword, he championed the public good over private-sector rights and pointed to inequities that result when business-centered economic growth is prioritized over neighborhoods -- an issue that broadly came to the fore in the recent controversy over renovating Quicken Loans Arena.

Kucinich helped to reframe the public policy debate, bringing up concerns that needed to be discussed, but were too often shunted aside.

There is also this: In an era of effete, careful political speech, Kucinich took chances, offended, advocated, drew rhetorical blood - but mostly displayed compassion for people in need.

A confrontational style is usually not an asset in politics, and Kucinich paid dearly for it. But he also gave as much as he got, and we as a city are the richer for what he advocated.

Richard M. Perloff is a professor of communication and political science at Cleveland State University and author of the forthcoming "The Dynamics of Political Communication," 2nd edition.

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